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Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Red Cross Helped Hundreds of Thousands of People as 180 Large Disasters Hit the U.S. in 2016

(January 9, 2017) — In a year that set new records for severe and devastating weather, the American Red Cross provided more assistance to the hundreds of thousands of people impacted by these disasters all across the United States than in the past two years combined.

In 2016, 32,000 Red Cross volunteers responded to 180 significant disasters in 45 states and two U.S. territories including wildfires, storms, flooding, Hurricane Matthew and other emergencies. Those volunteers opened nearly 800 emergency shelters, provided 206,000 overnight shelter stays to people forced from their homes, served more than 4.1 million meals and snacks, and distributed more than 2.1 million relief items.

Volunteers from the are responded to 10 of those major disasters, including:

Flint, Michigan, water crisis in January

Alberta, Canada, wildfires in May

Texas flooding in May

West Virginia flooding in June

Orlando mass shooting in June

Kentucky flooding in July

Louisiana flooding in August

Indiana tornado in August

Iowa flooding in September

Hurricane Matthew in October

These national disasters were in addition to the local disasters that struck our region, including flooding in the spring and fall, tornadoes and severe storms.

“This year a seemingly endless chain of disasters affected hundreds of thousands of people and our Red Cross volunteers were there, helping,” says Lynne Gump, Executive Director of the Northern Miami Valley Ohio Chapter of the American Red Cross. “People impacted by disaster are facing what can be their darkest days, but we helped around the clock, making sure people had food to eat, a place to stay and help recovering. We couldn’t do all that we do without our volunteers or the generosity of the public. We aren’t a government agency, so the help we provide to families affected by disasters depends on generous financial donations of the American people.”

Amidst all of these devastating events, home fires continued to be the largest disaster threat in the United States. During 2016, the Red Cross nationally provided assistance to 79,000 families after a home fire left them with nowhere else to turn. The Red Cross and thousands of local partners are also working to help prevent home fires, deaths and injuries. Since 2014, at least 116 lives have been saved through the Red Cross Home Fire Campaign in which 574,000 smoke alarms have been installed and 625,000 youth have been taught about fire safety. To find out how you can help save lives, build a stronger community or even to prepare your family call your local Red Cross or the website www.redcross.org/NMVO.

Reader Comments About DarkeJournal

Thanks to your wonderful “for sale” and “garage sale” section. I have used both successfully. Keep up the great reporting.

From someone who used the unclassifieds: "Thanks to DJ we rented [out] the house!"

We understand your site really has the best coverage for our county.

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I'm a huge fan of Darke Journal - thanks for providing this website/email information for the community.

I think we can all agree, this is the best site of its kind for Darke County by far.

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Must say I think you have done a really great job with the site.

Your web site is such a benefit to the community.

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Thanks for all your help. Darke Journal is the number one source for Darke County community news.

I have truly enjoyed keeping up with the Darke County news, but the constant reporting on conservative causes is totally inappropriate.

Darke Journal is sure on top of everything.

I really appreciate you running and bumping the garage sale ad over the last few days. My son and I had a really successful sale, and your site was a big help in making that happen (many people told us that they heard about it through DJ).

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When I turn on my computer in the morning, I check the weather and Darke Journal before anything else. Thank you for the pix & info on this site. It's nice to know what's going on in our great Darke County.

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DJ = nice guy, but should relinquish his website duties.

This is a wonderful site! I am so glad there is a place in this community where people can voice their opinion about issues. In the past for many years this community seems to be run by so called political people with others hiding in the brush waiting to inform their leaders of those who disagree with an issue on hand, just so they can point them out and try to ruin their life. Again I am so glad finally, an average Joe can make an Anonymous posted opinion and not fear that they will be pointed at or looked down for stating how they feel. Thank you D. J.

It’s better than most of the media available in and around Darke County.

The web site has had steadily increasing viewership over the last year or two and, at least in my opinion, has become a major player in getting news and commentary to Darke Countians.